Ptolemy VIII Physcon
An Egyptian king from the second century BC · Historical Figures · Lived 182 BC to 116 BC · aged 66
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Something wrong?Ptolemy VIII got the nickname "Physcon" - "Fatty" - from subjects who loathed him. He spent decades clawing his way to Egypt's throne through sibling wars, forced marriages, and a civil war that split the kingdom, finally ruling by allying with native Egyptians against the Greek elite who despised him.
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Born around 184 BC, the younger son of Ptolemy V and Cleopatra I, he was made co-ruler with his older brother Ptolemy VI and sister Cleopatra II in 170 BC as war loomed. When Ptolemy VI was captured, Ptolemy VIII arguably became sole king, but the brothers kept fighting after the war ended in 168 BC. In 164 BC he drove his brother out entirely, only to be expelled himself the next year and given Cyrene as consolation by Rome. After Ptolemy VI died in 145 BC, he returned to Egypt, married his sister Cleopatra II, then added his niece Cleopatra III as co-regent and second wife - sparking a civil war from 132/1 to 127/6 BC in which Cleopatra II held Alexandria with Greek support while he commanded the rest of Egypt by promoting native Egyptians to power for the first time in Ptolemaic history. He won, ruled alongside both Cleopatras until his death in 116 BC, and was remembered by Greek writers as brutal, shrewd, and grotesquely fat.
Historical Figures born in the 190s BC 1
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